What I know is that, theoreticall, you have to ask, and the author has the right to forbid your cover at all. A friend of mine did a Jaques Brel music theatre show at Hamburger Schauspielhaus which eventually was forbidden by the heirs of Jacques Brel. Too bad. With cover songs, I think, it is common practice to play them on stage without asking an then simply including them in the list for, in Germany, GEMA, so that the author gets his share from them. You don't have to fill in this list if you don't take cover for the concert. However, I'm not sure how this works with a publication in the internet or on a CD, and I'd like to know too! One thing, though, I think is clear: this does not depend on your making money with it. At 22:26 04.12.2002 -0500, SonataPathetique@aol.com wrote:
i was wondering about the same thing dan was. I already took a bunch of covers that I redid myself and put them on the internet. However, they are all classical covers and I don't think the Bach family is try to come after me. But let's say I did this with modern music. No one has ever paid for a copy of the songs, yet I put my name on them and list it as a cover of the original artist. Anyone that wants to hear it can download at will. Is there anyway the artists could prevent me from doing this? You might say no because I am not making any money off of it. But what if I did them so well that I became famous? Because of the cover songs, I could make a great deal off of my first original release. Would I owe anyone?
Now, could the original artist sell my version of his song without my permission??